Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/181

inglorious warden of a gateless threshold and a puny altar? Whence hath the rustic Alcides this new court and this unwonted splendour? Gods have their destinies and places also! What swift de- votion! Here of late could be seen but barren sands, a wave-beaten mountain-side, and boulders rough with scrub, and cliffs that would scarce admit a foothold. What sudden fortune has embellished these stark crags? Did those walls rise to Tyrian music or to the Getic harp?^[1] The year itself marvels at the toil. and the months in their twelvefold orbit are amazed to see the work of ages. ’Twas the god that brought and uplifted his own towers, and by might and main moved the resisting boulders, and with huge breast drove back the mountain; you would have thought his cruel stepdame bade him.

Come then, whether free at last from thraldom thou dwellest in thy ancestral Argos, and spurnest Eurystheus in his grave, or whether the throne of thy father Jove and the stars thy valour won thee are thy abode, and Hebe with robe upgirt, more charming than the banished Phrygian lad, hands thee the draught of blissful nectar: hither come, and bring thy presence to the new-born shrine. No harmful Lerna calls thee, nor the acres of poor Molorechus^[2] nor Nemea’s dreaded field, nor Thracian caves nor the polluted altars of the Pharian prince,^[3] but a blest and innocent home that knows naught of evil fraud, an abode most worthy of a divine guest. Lay aside thy ruthless bow and thy quiver’s cruel horde and the club that plenteous blood of kings hath stained; cast off the foe that is spread upon thy